A Ghost Story from the Pacific.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 77, 22 November 1884, Page 5

A Ghost Story from the Pacific.

A correspondent in Canton sends the following story for the Spiritualists from the Marshall Islands :—": — " The end of last year, or the beginning of thi3, an American ship, tho Kanier, was wrecked on these islands, and about twenty men found refuse on them. But their number being too large for their supply of provisions, it was agreed that the party should separate. The captain caused a small twenty-ton schooner to be built of the remains of the wreck, and taking ten of the crew and a share of the provisions sailed away for another island ot the group, about three huniued miles off. The rest of the crew were left in charge of the first mate, a son-in-law of the captain. The second mate was sent off to make his way to Saigon and appeal for aid. This he did, finally reaching Hong Kong, when the U S. corvette Essex was despatched to the rescue, carrying the second mate as a guide. Meanwhile, the king of the island on which the shipwrecked men were, who was kind and friendly to them, was full of forebodings as to the fate of the captain's party and the second mate; said they would nevor see them again, and so on. But one day he came with different tidings. It seems he was in the habit of holding spiritual communion with his dead wife, by name Olivia. In one of these seances he had, I suppose, asked her if she could give him any- tidings, any hopes for his shipwrecked friends. She said that on a Sunday a sail would be seen, and they would be rescued. The King brought this news with great joy to the refugees, and with some curiosity they awaited the result. This must have been some four months after they were wrecked. Sure enough on the following Sunday a sail was seen, but in spite of their efforts to attract attention, the ship passed on her course. But the Sunday after that the rescuing ship, the Essex, appeared in sight, and eventually took them all off. This story was related by an officer of the Essex to a friend of mine, who at once came and told it me. I will add, that for the benefit of any ardent Spiritualists or newspaper correspondents who may desire to go at once to the Marshall Islands in search of revelations from savage mediums, or to interview the King, that these islands are in the North Pacific 'Ocean, to the S.W. of the Sandwich Isles, and there is very little communication with thorn,"